A UN inquiry into conditions at Guantánamo Bay has called on Washington to shut down the prison, and says treatment of detainees in some cases amounts to torture, UN officials said yesterday. The report also disputes the Bush administration's legal arguments for the prison, which was sited at the navy base in Cuba with the purpose of remaining outside the purview of the US courts, and says there has been insufficient legal process to decide whether detainees continued to pose a threat to the US. The report, prepared by five envoys from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and due for release tomorrow, is bound to deepen international criticism of the detention centre. Drafts of the report were leaked to the Los Angeles Times and the Telegraph newspapers, but UN envoys refused to comment yesterday. During an 18-month investigation, the envoys interviewed freed prisoners, lawyers and doctors to collect information on the detainees, who ... http://www.guardian.co.uk

Former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and another attorney said Monday they were withdrawing sworn statements submitted in a bid to spare a man from execution. Prosecutors had denounced the letters from jurors, which asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare the man's life, as forgeries, and the defense team initially stood by them. But in a letter to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, attorney David Senior said he and Starr were "withdrawing any and all reliance on any exhibits generated" by one of their investigators. The defense said it would withdraw five of the six statements. A statement purportedly taken from Michael Morales' former roommate and submitted to the California Supreme Court also requires further investigation, Senior wrote. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1615055

A former Nepalese prime minister jailed for corruption has been set free, officials say, after the anti-graft body that prosecuted him was outlawed. Sher Bahadur Deuba was released on Tuesday, his party colleagues said. He was sacked in February last year by King Gyanendra, who went on to assume direct control over the government. Nepal's top court ruled on Monday that the king had violated the constitution in forming the anti-corruption body that had sent Mr Deuba to prison. "The court has finally given us justice," an official from Mr Deuba's Nepali Congress Democratic Party told the Associated Press news agency. "This is a victory for democracy and a humiliating defeat for the royal regime," Dip Kumar Upadhaya said. There has been no government reaction to Mr Deuba's release. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4711120.stm

THREE multimillion-pound prizes designed to help solve some of the world’s most pressing scientific puzzles will be offered later this year. The rewards, which could exceed $10 million (£5.7 million) each, will be offered by the X-Prize Foundation, the organisation set up by Peter Diamandis of Space Adventures. That company created the first space tourist in 2001 by assisting Dennis Tito to fly to the International Space Station. The foundation’s trustees include Larry Page, the co-founder of internet search company Google; Richard Garriott, the video game pioneer; and Craig Venter, a Vietnam veteran who went on to become a leading genetics researcher and entrepreneur. Dr Diamandis said last night that the prizes were likely to include $10 million for the first company to sequence the genetic code of 100 people in a matter of weeks. “The value of the human genome doesn’t really occur until you have it for tens of hundreds of people, so the prize will make that happen,” he said....http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2039528,00.html

In recent weeks, this oil and gas town of 6,000 in southwest Kansas has been looking into buying water -- perhaps $190,000 worth.The Ogallala Aquifer, the vast underground pool that supplies faucets across the Great Plains, is running low, forcing farmers and towns to find other sources of water and pay dearly for it, too."Out here, water is like gold," Mayor Ed Wiltse said as he ran his hands over a chart of the town's faltering wells. "Without it, we perish."The Ogallala is the world's largest underground water system, irrigating one-third of the United States' corn crops and providing drinking water to parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. It contains enough water to cover the United States to a depth of 1 1/2 feet.But some water experts have said it is one of the fastest-disappearing aquifers in the world....http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/13855341.htm

The White House was bombarded with questions on Monday about why it failed to go public with news that Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow quail hunter until the day after the accident. The victim, Harry Whittington, 78, took pellets in his cheek, neck and chest when Cheney fired his shotgun while aiming for a bird during a hunt in southern Texas on Saturday, and was in stable condition at a Corpus Christi hospital.Whittington was moved out of intensive care on Monday afternoon but Peter Banko, administrator of Christus Spohn Hospital, said he did not know when Whittington would be discharged."His condition continues to be stable ... it's not critical, it's not serious. He's in stable condition, doing extremely well," Banko said.The accident happened about 5:30 p.m. on a private ranch ...http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060214/pl_nm/cheney_accident1_dc